POSTCARD FROM POLAND CORONAVIRUS DIARY, DAY 3 LOCKDOWN

Day 91

I promised myself I’d not blog about Coronavirus again.

But there’s nothing else to blog about. It’s worse than bloody Brexit, isn’t it?

Last week we decamped from our home in Wroclaw to the sleepy Silesian small town of Grodkow, and for a week I enjoyed an almost idyllic existence.

Let me tell you a bit about Grodkow: it’s located in the Silesian Lowlands of the Oder basin, in the historic region of Upper Silesia region and has 8,595 inhabitants.

And none of them have Coronavirus.

We’ve had some glorious spring weather here, so for a week I started the day with a brisk walk, worked for a few hours, went for an hour’s run and discovered a hitherto undetected beauty in my surroundings. There’s not much to do in Grodkow, which is part of the beauty of the place. And if church doesn’t float your boat, social distancing is the norm, rather than something new and scary.

I taught myself to play chess, re-visited my Spanish lessons and finished the first draft of Saving Dave.

I’d lost some weight, what with all this exercise, reduced alcohol and eating food my wife had prepared, rather than the rubbish I usually consume when we eat out.

I was actually thinking ‘what’s not to like about this?’ when, today, the Polish government came out with further restrictions and spoilt it all.

Now, I’m not going to say much about the Polish government because I don’t want to get arrested. The PiS is a national-conservative Christian democratic right-wing populist party who will do absolutely anything to hang onto power in the spectre of what passes for post-soviet democracy.

And now they’ve decided to curtail our freedom further still, but without providing sufficient clarification.

If you’re a member of the social distancing camp, then some of their new dictum makes a sort of logical sense, but a lot of it doesn’t.

For example, it would appear that it’s okay to go for a short walk … but – wait for it – you should not take exercise. Surely the point of a walk is to have exercise? And how short is a short walk anyway? Where’s the logic to this?

And my neighbour tells us that whilst it’s not against the law to go for a jog it’s … morally reprehensible, because you are putting yourself and everyone else in your household at risk.

So that means no more running.

Now if you read my first Coronavirus blog, you would have noticed that my feet were very much under what I called the Dissenters’ table.  And if you didn’t, let me explain: I referred to those who see this as the Apocalyptic event that they had been predicting – and secretly looking forward to – for years, as the Doom Mongers, and those who thought it was largely media hype and nothing to get in a tizz about, as the Dissenters.

In my last blog, I took a leaf from the Italians and switched sides, but now, you know … I’m just not so sure?

I read two interesting articles at the weekend, which I’m going to share with you.

The first, published in The Spectator is a piece by John Lee, a recently retired professor of pathology and a former NHS consultant pathologist. He made the point that by making Covid-19 a notifiable disease, the authorities may have distorted the figures.

I will quote from his article in case you can’t be bothered to read it: Clearly, the various lockdowns will slow the spread of Covid-19 so there will be fewer cases. When we relax the measures, there will be more cases again.

He also made the point, that the average age of those dying in Italy is 78.5 years, with almost nine in ten fatalities among the over-70s. The life expectancy in Italy is 82.5 years.

I do strongly urge you to read the article because it provides a balanced view, contrary to all the paranoid over-hyped guff peddled by a sensation seeking tosspot-riddled media machine.

The second article I’m pointing you to, written by Peter Hitchens and published in the Daily Mail is not so balanced; in fact it’s more of a rant (but what would you expect from the Mail, I hear you ask?) but it’s quite a good rant, and it raises some questions that are heresy in the Doom Monger camp.

My concerns regarding the policy of Lockdown are thus: where is the evidence base that suggests when we are released from our asylums, Coronavirus will have disappeared? For sure, locking people in their homes is certainly going to slow down the spread, but will it put an end to it?

Secondly, I believe this policy is a prime and flawed example of the classic politician’s syllogism:

• We must do something.
• This is something.
• Therefore, we must do this.

I don’t blame governments for introducing draconian restrictions, I’m just not so sure that they will work.

I’m not going to sign off by telling you to “stay safe”, because this phrase is starting to seriously piss me off … but I hope you do.

Live long and prosper.

Hasta pronto, Chic@s!